


dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep

by RossettiMucha



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, Post-It's Only Love If It Hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 04:49:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10550328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RossettiMucha/pseuds/RossettiMucha
Summary: Post-ep for 'It's Only Love If It Hurts' - Bernie and Serena say goodbye.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'When You Are Old' by W.B. Yeats (sorry Yeats, for sullying ya like this pal,) though I hope this ends on a more positive note than the poem.
> 
> (Also this is probably going to be the only time I ever acknowledge anything past the Kiev arc. I'm still clinging onto those heady days of fun angst, as opposed to angst that keeps me up at night.)

They stay on the roof until the sun rises.

They don’t speak, but the silence is comfortable at long last, in a way it hasn’t been for months. Nothing unspoken is left between them anymore. Bernie feels lighter for it. It’s all out _there_ now, floating in the aether and stabilising the air around them; but only for as long as they remain still, in this temporary space they have created together. Still, she is grateful for the reprieve – grateful for this final moment with Serena, and grateful that it’s so peaceful. So unlike so much of their story. She wonders what will happen when they have to move again – when they have to shatter the immediacy of the moment and consign it to memory – and finds that she can’t image anything beyond it. Their future is suddenly so unclear.

All she knows now that their time together is finite. She can count the minutes left to them on one hand, in days… 

hours… 

_minutes_ … 

she feels it in her bones, the way it’s slipping away from her like water through cupped palms. She doesn’t know how she didn’t notice it before – that they’ve been living on borrowed time for months. She wishes she’d found some way to use it better, but she still can’t think of anything she could have done differently.

So she waits for as long as Serena is willing. Her hands numbed with cold long ago, but she can’t quite bring herself to break that single point of contact between them. Worries that if she lets go, she’ll never get it back again – that Serena might just dissolve and leave Bernie alone in the half-darkness.

She watches the sky lighten into streaks of soft pinks and yellows, and it seems to happen too quickly. She wonders if Serena notices it too: that it doesn’t feel like a dawn. It feels like the end of something.

Her chest is heavy with a weight she can’t name, and she wonders if all this is over before it has even really begun.

The sky fades to blue at last, clear and bright with the promise of a new day, and the balance of the moment is broken. They pack away the deck chair without speaking, and make their way to the car hand in hand.

//

As soon as they get home, Serena goes upstairs to pack. She tells Bernie that it’s because she’s worried that if she stops, she’ll never be able to move again – ‘ _better strike while the iron’s hot, hadn’t I_?’ – It’s one final lie; and one Bernie doesn’t call her on, because she thinks this is the one thing she can understand. Serena isn’t afraid of stopping, she knows; she’s afraid of _never being able to stop again_. She’s afraid of the manic energy that drives her to do things she doesn’t want to do – or _shouldn’t_ want to do – or _doesn’t know she wants to do_. She wants to escape her own reality, if only for a little while.

Bernie feels as though she can’t quite reach her anymore – not over this yawning chasm of grief between them, not across experiences she would never, ever, wish to share. She can’t help the woman she loves, and she feels the impotency keenly. Has felt the distance grow greater the more time passes, and knows now that she needs to let go; needs to allow Serena to make her way back on her own. 

So she stands back as Serena pads up and down the stairs through patches of early morning sun, and says nothing. She doesn’t think she could, even if she wanted to. What kind of words would ever be able to express the inexpressible? Better that she say it through silence instead, and hope, somehow, that Serena understands. 

_Serena smiles at her when she passes, soft and sad, and Bernie thinks that maybe she does_.

They eat breakfast pressed together from shoulder to hip at the kitchen table, and Bernie wishes that she could ask Serena to stay. Wishes that they could both stay here forever, watching the blossom tree wave through the window. This is how their life should be, she thinks. This quiet simplicity. Perhaps this is something they’ll regain, if – _when_ , she chides herself – Serena comes back. 

Bernie feels a tell-tale prickle in her throat again, and squeezes Serena’s hand a little harder. Serena sniffs and squeezes back, and Bernie realises that this must be so much harder for her. Serena is the one who has to leave – whose memories are no longer a balm or a comfort to her. 

Whose life is too shadowed by ghosts for her to stay and live it. 

She returns her attention to the blossom tree. Tries to focus on the spring buds – on the potential for renewal – and offers to drive Serena to the station.

//  
By the time they leave the house, the world has settled into a cool spring morning of bright skies and the promise of the first warm afternoon of the year. It’s the sort of day that looks as though it’s been created in technicolour – that always feels bright with possibility and the newness of a changing season. Today it feels oversaturated and sharp, and Bernie can hardly bear to look at it. She puts her sunglasses on and lugs Serena’s cases to the car as quickly as she can.

Serena insists that she wants to drive – wants to take one last spin around town before she leaves for who knows how long – so Bernie folds herself into the passenger seat and tries to savour every second of it. She watches Serena unabashedly, and tries to commit every last detail of her expression to memory. But it’s hard – so many parts of this Serena are new and jagged, and don’t align with the pieces of the old one, and neither Bernie nor Serena can quite fit them together yet.

 _It doesn’t matter_ , she tells herself. _We will, one day_. 

Everything feels so much bigger than her now. Too sweeping, too expansive to grasp. But how she feels about Serena – that’s what she has to hold onto. 

She wonders if it will fade, while Serena’s away – how much she loves her. Doesn’t think that it could, but then, how can she possibly know that? There was a time when she didn’t think that she could love someone at all the way she loves Serena, and now she can’t imagine herself without it; can’t remember what it was like, to be so half-full. 

She hopes she’ll never need to again.

They arrive at the station too quickly – Bernie doesn’t think time has ever moved this fast – and she lingers at the ticket barrier, unwilling to say goodbye just yet, when she’s so unsure of when she’ll be able to say hello again. But Serena seems so brave and resolute that she chokes down anything she might have said, and hugs her tightly. She presses their lips together in lieu of crying, and wishes Serena a safe trip. Serena nods tightly, as though she’s holding back tears too. 

They stand and stare at each other for a moment, and Bernie feels the emotion beginning to build in a sickening wave in the back of her throat. She tries to repress it – but it’s so much harder these days, when she’s grown so used to feeling. When Serena has made her feel so much. 

She has to look away.

“Well. Bye, then.” Serena says, and Bernie can only nod. Wishes she could say more, but knows that if she opens her mouth, the wave will be unleashed, and she’ll start bawling in the middle of the station concourse. She doesn’t want to do that to Serena. Doesn’t want her to feel guilty for this; for doing something she needs to do.

She turns to leave, measuring out every step and praying that she can keep it together until she’s back in the car. She’s halfway there – _one foot in front of the other, Wolfe. Just like on parade_ – when she hears a faint but clear “Bernie!” and sees Serena standing at the barriers, waving frantically.

Bernie’s running to her before she knows what’s happening, scattering tourists and pigeons – _sorry, Icarus_ – in her path. 

Serena reaches out a hand over the gates to grab her, and Bernie falls into her awkward embrace, clutching at as much of her as she can reach, desperate as always for one last touch. Knows that it will still never be enough. 

“Come with me,” Serena says suddenly – desperately – her forehead pressed so hard against Bernie's that she feels her skin begin to prickle with the pressure. “Come with me and we can go together.”

Bernie shakes her head and pulls back. Gathers all her strength before she speaks, because there’s nothing she wants more. 

“You know I can’t. And… you don’t want me to, really. This has to be about you, Serena.”

Serena nods, resigned – as though this was the answer she expected. 

“I know. I know it does. But… I’m _scared_ , Bernie. What if I don’t find what I’m looking for?” She trails off, seems to shrink in on herself, and when she speaks again, it’s a tremulous whisper. “What if there’s nothing to be found?”

Bernie can’t give her the answer she wants. Human sight is so imperfect, and human sight blinded by love is the most imperfect of all. She doesn’t know what’s out there; how Serena could possibly come back from this. So she says the next best thing, instead. 

“If there is, Serena, I know you’ll find it.”

Serena laughs wetly, and looks away. “But I can’t do it alone.”

“Of course you can. You can do anything you put your mind to, Serena Campbell. You’ve got this.” 

Bernie finds that she means it. That she believes in Serena, the way she always has. The way she always will. 

Serena sniffs and nods, resolute once more. 

“Where will you go?” Bernie asks, just to keep her here a little longer, and hates her voice for breaking.

“I’ve always fancied Switzerland, actually,” Serena smiles through her tears. “I’ve never been. A new place. A fresh start.”

“Lots of fondue?” Bernie tries, and is graced with a watery chuckle.

“I’ll send you back a set.” 

For a moment, Bernie feels as though nothing has changed. It could be that first March morning again, two new acquaintances bantering in a grey car park like they’re old friends; or the warm days of July, when they’d stomped the halls of Holby together, and delighted in a little flirty, friendly, professional competition – in finding an equal, a partner at last. She remembers August when they kissed for the first time, and her life felt as though it had fallen into place at last. When Serena’s eyes still sparkled with wit, instead of cruelty. When she still felt whole. 

Every moment of their year together flashes before her eyes like a film reel – joy and despair and love – and she realises that she’ll wait forever for Serena Campbell. That she would be worth it. That she would always be worth it.

The train pulls into the station, and Serena pulls away regretfully, with one last squeeze of her hand. Bernie watches her go; watches her wave from the door of the carriage, and then disappear inside. 

The train pulls out again, and just like that, Serena is gone. 

“ _I hope so_ ,” Serena had said, because it was the best she could offer. _I hope so, but don’t push – I hope so, please don’t ask me again – I hope so but I can’t know anything for sure, I can’t take anything for granted anymore._

 _I hope so_.

Bernie thinks that maybe it’s enough.


End file.
